Just read the reviews on Highdefdigest.

AlanR

I'm so glad someone finally made a list. I'll be sure to boycott these ppl until further notice. It really pisses me off that my 28 Days Later and Stargate look like shit.

bluSCALE4

Cloverfield.. both on BD and on DVD the bonus features all had weird field problems. The movie is the epitome of shaky-cam. But that's nothing compared to watching hours of bonus features with reversed field order. It's a sure-fire way for me to get a migraine.

Who can we complain to about this crap? Whoever onlined it and/or was the post supervisor should be fired! The content of the bonus features were great. But the exec producers must have only watched a single-field offline version of them. Many times producers will approve content by watching a quicktime movie of it. What's on the disc is virtually unwatchable.

badweasel

@deadhouseplantz: 1.5 times the amount paid for video? while I know audio quality is a must in an hd theater setup 1.5 times the amount paid would be better spent using the extra .5 on a better video setup. I would say spend at 'least' half or up to the same amount as the video setup including wiring. Though I know some people just bust a nut for audio.

lilaliendog

@TheMurderer: MGM should just have the BD-Live portion of their BDs to point to www.mininova.org, so people can download the missing content.

Alex7575

The blu-ray disc in the image should be saying: "Pew pew pew!"

onewiththewurlitzer

Ok seriously it's not expensive to go HD anymore. You can get a 50" 1080p DLP television with LED backlighting (no color wheel and bulb last 4x longer with better color and better contrast ratio, huzzah!) for 1400 bucks. And it's around a foot thick and weighs less than 50 lbs. And a PS3 costs 400. 7.1 surround sound speakers with receiver that decodes Dolby TrueHD and dts-HD cost around 600. So for an insanely good 1080p setup it should cost 2400 bucks. Not bad considering that 3 years ago it cost 2400 bucks just for the TV.

daftrok

@strider_mt2k: Hi. I'm OMG! Ponies! You must be new here.

Sony is a global corporation which is in the business of selling consumer electronics in an already saturated market. For the past quarter-century, Sony has had dreams of a neverending revenue stream pouring into its coffers from format royalty payments. Which is why they have tried so often and so hard at failed formats like MiniDisc and ATRAC.

In a perfect world, there would be no format wars and no hype over said formats. But how would that help Sony's bottom line?

OMG! Ponies!

@strider_mt2k: you expected differently?

mikeg916

@basicvisual: not too mention you'd be watching a drawing in "hi-def".

hardly worth the cost.

i refuse to buy ANY anime Blu-Ray discs (I'm looking at you Appleseed: Ex Machina" simply becuase they don't look any better than the original and do not come with upgraded soundtracks.

mikeg916

DVD is the safe bet for so many reasons. After almost a year of BD, it's still failing to become mainstream, and Sony's reluctance to lower media/hardware prices isn't winning over customers. Combine that with inconsistent quality between studios, and it's no wonder why customers haven't gotten on-board with BD yet.

Upscaling-DVD looks pretty good, it's much less expensive for both media and hardware, and the catalogue is huge. Picture and sound quality is also more consistently near the top of the technology's capability, between studios.

newgalactic

Another reason to hold off on blu ray till there is some kind of standards all movies must abide by. That and the fact they got this depression on and I got to do for me and mine.

jbdyson

So the fight was over which format to bilk consumers with?

Nice.

strider_mt2k

@Y2KGTP: Yeah, for us folk with the worlds smallest bladders, the pause button is a life saver. =| I hate missing 5 minutes of a movie every time I see one.

Lite

they are too expensive $25 for a movie? i usually dont watch the extras i just like the movie. the only movie that might get my attention and my hard worked $25 would be Iron Man. maybe i am too cheap or I just like to save my money,

Benitocarmona

@deadhouseplantz: Dunno, I have a set of THX rated Hafler home speakers w/ 15" powered sub I picked up for $500.

It really depends upon how far into the red you want to go with your money spending spree. Most people don't know how to properly position their speakers for surround sound, let alone care that their $300 set of KLH speakers aren't great. It still sounds far better than the basic stereo audio coming out of the TV.

For me, there is no point in going above a certain price-point as I am incapable (hearing damage) of noticing the difference in quality.

Lite

Is anyone suprised?

Take a DVD, put it on bluray as-is and charge BD prices! $++

UncleArgyll

Again. I'm not buying unless it's a compelling title. What do I consider compelling? The Godfather Trilogy, transferred from a newly scrubbed and restored print. Beyond that, I'm not buying. I'm queuing it on Netflix.

OMG! Ponies!

@MichaelScrip: We use to have a DVD collection of over 750 movies. We would buy 3 to 4 movies a week. Then we got Netflix and found out, how much money were wasting. However, I'm a father, and kids have this annoying but lovable trait of watching a movie until the wheels fall off. (Speaking of which, my youngest got home from kindergarten not too long ago, and instantly plopped TMNT into his PS3, making it his 128,943 time seeing that movie.) As a parent, I love Blu-Ray because not only do you get a movie, but games and extras. My sons enjoyed raising their own water horse for the movie of the same name. The woman will watch anything with the Rock in it over and over, as well as Transformers and Iron Man. Me, not so much, I'm a watch it once, and move on kind of guy.

deadhouseplantz

I watched Pale Rider last nite (Warner Brothers Blu-ray); audio is TrueHD 5.1 and the video is VC-1. Warner Bros. gets a B- in the S&V review... Pale Rider gets maybe a D+ in the video category in my opinion. It's just barely better than DVD here.

scarbrtj

@MichaelScrip:

But at least you can pause the movie at home....

Y2KGTP

@deadhouseplantz:

Or Netflix period! Renting is great. There are very few title I have to own. Seeing them once is usually enough.

When I go to to a theater, I can't walk out with the reels.

MichaelScrip

@bpapa9013: No offense, but that seems too low, unless you have preexisting equipment. Also, don't forget or go cheap on the audio. What ever you spend on a display, expect to pay 1.5 times that for a receiver and speakers. Half of the thrill of a Blu-Ray home theater is actually using all 5 to 7 channels distinctly. Best movies to prove this point: Iron Man, Transformers, and Rambo.

deadhouseplantz

I have been saying this for months on here and EngadgetHD to Blu-Ray haters and fanboys alike.

My best advice is Netflix it before you buy. You'll save money regardless of how many titles you buy. I got stuck with Justice League: Season 1 on Blu-Ray. I thought, hey, it's high-def right? So it has to be letterbox, and it has to be 5.1 digital sound, right? WRONG. It's pretty much the same crap from the standard-def discs just transferred to a Blu-Ray format. So from that moment on, I tell my family, tell me a movie you want to buy, and I'll get it from Netflix first.

I'm the reason why Blu-Ray bonus discs have a waiting status to them.

deadhouseplantz

@bpapa9013: You can get into a 1080p+Bluray setup for under $1500. You should only be spending $2500 if you're getting a gigantic 1080p TV (47"+)

rjp

Are we really surprised that a studio would take the cheap route?

Dirk

I own a PS3 but have only purchased 2 Blu-ray movies for it (Lord of War and Return to House on Haunted Hill). The only reason why this has occured is because I predominately watch Anime dvd's which haven't come around to the Blu-ray side of things. Plus even if they start to trickle in I'm not going to spend 35$ on a disc especially since the current batch of anime dvd's end up in the $20+ range even on release date where as the regular movie dvd's are available for about $15 on release date.

basicvisual

Sounds too depressing. I'm still psyching myself up to drop all that coinage on an HDTV and PS3 so I don't want anything to sway me in the other direction...

I'll read it after I spend the $2.5k to get into the market...

bpapa9013

Well, at least Sony is giving their all to their Blu-Ray baby.
Tsk tsk MGM.

TheMurderer

@daftrok: $2400 is not bad considering what it cost 3 years ago however I wouldn't call it "not expensive" -- especially considering the state of things right now economically.

Dirk

This is only speculation but I bet this wouldn't have happened with HD DVD ... their set up was better and it would have made it easier for the studios and the consumers to get the most out of the features.

king_of_fools

You know, I really appreciate my upscaling dvd player right now.

mcjake

@lilaliendog: Receivers and amps count as audio. We have the Pioneer Elite VSX-94TXH with 4 Aperion Audio Intimus 533-PT Powered Tower Speakers, along with an Aperion Audio 533 center channel speaker. Giving us an unusual high powered 5.4 system. I suggest people going to Aperion Audio. They always sell high end products for prices lower than Best Buy.

deadhouseplantz

I haven't bought that many Blu-Rays, but I've enjoyed watching lots of them from Netflix.

Canoehead

@bluSCALE4: Can't speak for Stargate, but 28 Days Later was shot with SD cameras to intentionally achieve a certain look, so it's never going to look any better than it does on DVD. That's the director's choice - not really a Blu-Ray issue.

hastyp

@king_of_fools: No, there were plenty of crappy HD-DVDs out there for its short lifespan as well. Some stuidios are simply douches.

Valatar

@mikeg916: are you serious? while you may not gain anything in the 'fine skin textures' department, i feel the general sharpness and cleanness of the image is pretty worthwhile. paprika for example looked awesome.

adaorardor

Again...anyone who expected the same studios who held back on anamorphic widescreen DVDs to actually care about quality when it came to Bluray were asking to have their cash stolen.

francisrizzo3

Good luck selling Blu-Ray discs during a recession...especially ones that are barely any better than DVDs...

davecw